Category: Site Announcements
Torment by Lauren Kate
Today I’m guest posting over at The Streetlight Reader and am reviewing the second book in the Fallen series, Torment. I thought Fallen, the first book, was pretty good, considering. But my thoughts about the second book are less than flattering, believe me. Click here to go on over and see my review/rant.
While you’re over there, check out the rest of Savindi’s reviews as well as her attempts at cooking and her thought-provoking articles about diversity, new adult literature and so much more! I guarantee you’ll find some new books to add to your TBR pile.
The Best and Worst of May 2013
Well, I’ve come around full circle. Last year in May I started my Best and Worst of… series and never thought I’d still be doing it a year later. But it turns out I like analyzing my stats and hearing your thoughts on them as well. Therefore, I’ll now be adding years to the series.
Anyway, May was a record-breaking month, surpassing February, March and April in terms of page views in one month. In the month of May I received 4,627 page views, with 2,508 of those being unique views. That’s pretty good and I’m hoping it will continue to be a trend. So what were some of the best posts for this month? Let’s take a look:
1. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
2. End of Days by Eric Walters
3. An Apology to Self-Published Writers
4. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
Amazingly, there’s two articles up here that were just published this month, rather than the same old articles I’ve had up for a year. I’m proud to say that my apology to self-published writers reached so many people and got such a great response. I thought long and hard on publishing that article, but decided that doing the right thing was more important than my embarrassment at admitting I was wrong. The reading speed article did surprisingly well, likely because it really engaged a lot of people. It was fascinating to see how fast other people, both regular readers and book bloggers read.
Now for the worst articles of May:
4. Run Like Jäger by Karen Bass
5. Victoria: May Blossom of Britannia by Anna Kirwan
When you think about it, none of these are really surprising. Some are old books that were never popular to begin with, some are the first books in trilogies that are or almost are finished and one is a self-published book. The latter, The Show by John Heldt, is a great novel, but it just doesn’t seem to be getting much traffic lately.
Well, that was pretty much how my May went. How was yours? Are you reading anything good at the moment?
On Review Requests, Wait Times and Health Problems
First off, let me say that I’m flattered so many authors have been contacting me to request reviews for their books. Not only is it awesome to get free books, it’s always such a great experience working with authors from all kinds of different backgrounds. This is truly one of the joys of blogging.
However, I’m starting to get to where I have too many requests for my situation. I won’t be closing requests, but I will be a lot more picky about whose requests I accept. Don’t follow the guidelines in my review policy and send me a generic email? Trash. It’s that simple, even though in the past I would give most authors a second chance.
Also, waiting times are likely to be quite long, currently sitting at 2-3 months for ebooks and two weeks for paperbacks. There’s a good reason for all this and it’s not my awful procrastination habit either.
I’ve been driving back and forth making eight hour round trips to see various specialists down in the city. You see, I’ve been suffering from chronic back pain for almost three years now and my symptoms are getting worse. The pain in my back is more severe, and I’m starting to get pain in my legs, particularly my knees. Is my condition life threatening? Not likely, thank goodness. But does it keep me from doing what I love? Sometimes.
So far I’ve been lucky enough not to have to make the tough decision to cut back on blogging. Blogging is one of the few things left to me now that I come home from work and collapse from exhaustion and pain. I can’t do all of the physical activities I used to, so in some ways I do get more reading done. However, I also have days where all I can do is sleep because the pain makes it hard to even hold a book.
Therefore you guys probably won’t be seeing as many interviews or giveaways this summer as I have done in the past, but hopefully once I get my diagnosis and get some proper treatment I can get on with my life.
I Need a Slogan
The overall feel of my blog is kind of random, at least that’s how I see it. Every month or so I change the header and icon for my blog and that’s fine, but I’d like to have a distinctive ‘brand’. I want people to see my logo and be able to say, “That’s The Mad Reviewer!”
That’s why the amazing Diantha Jones, who designed my reading and reviewing challenge button (on the sidebar), is also making me a header with a logo and slogan. The only problem is I actually need a slogan. At first I thought “Reviews, Rants and Randomness” would fit my blog, but that’s already been taken by various reviewers. I still want something along that train of thought, something short and sweet but memorable all the same.
So my question for you guys is: what should my slogan be? Please leave your suggestions in the comments below. And who knows? Maybe the person who comes up with the best slogan will receive a sort of prize involving my reading and reviewing challenge? One or two extra entries for free even if you aren’t already participating, perhaps? We’ll see.
The Mad Reviewer Reading Challenge Prizes
Yes, I’ve finally decided on what prize(s) the winner of my reading challenge draw will receive! But here’s more detailed breakdown of how I shall choose who gets the prize.
First off, everyone who completes my reading and reviewing challenge will be entered in a draw once I’ve verified that they’ve completed it. Here is the breakdown of how I will weight the draw if they complete certain levels:
Mad Reviewer (104 books): 4 entries
Crazy Reviewer (52 books): 3 entries
Slightly Sane Reviewer (26 books): 2 entries
Sane Reviewer (12 books): 1 entry
I think it’s only fair that the people who took on the more difficult levels should receive more entries since they have to read and review far more books. If you’re trying for the Mad Reviewer level and don’t quite make your goal, as long as you’ve read and reviewed 52 books you can still be entered as Crazy Reviewer. The same goes if you tried for Crazy Reviewer and reached less than 52 books but reached 26 books or more. Ditto for Slightly Sane Reviewer dropping down to Sane Reviewer.
If anyone goes over the 104 books read and reviewed in one year, depending on how far they go over, they may receive extra entries. For example, if you reach 150 you’ll probably get 5 entries and if you reach 200 you’ll get 6 entries. But I’ll figure something more concrete out if someone reaches that level. We’ll see.
My Prize
I’ve been putting away spare change all year, saving up for the end of the year. Why? So I can provide my own prize of internationally shipped paperback books. What kind of books, you ask? Well, I don’t want to give too much away but I know for sure that I’ll be shipping 2 ARCs: one that I received accidentally from a publisher and the other given to me by the owner of my local bookstore. I want my prize pack to consist of about 5 books, so if I don’t get enough ARCs I want to ship out, I’ll select books of varied genres from my own shelves.
Also, there can be only one winner. Since I’m shipping internationally and it’s not exactly cheap I can only afford to declare one winner, so runners up will not be receiving print books. Which brings me to the next part of my prize pack:
Mark Lee’s Prize
Mark Lee of The Masquerade Crew is probably one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet online or in real life. He has generously agreed to provide prizes for my reading challenge for free. These prizes are not set in stone, but sometime in December Mark will be initiating a call on his website for authors to provide free ebooks as part of the prize. How many ebooks the winner gets depends on how many submissions we get. The winner will be able to select either however many they want or a certain number (depending on how many submissions we get) from this pool of free ebooks. And since these ebooks will be going to reviewers, both reviewers and authors win since reviewers get free books and authors likely will get reviews.
I’m thinking of limiting the number of books the winner can receive and having the runners up able to pick a few less free books, but get free ebooks all the same. So even if you don’t win the grand prize, I’ll be picking 2-3 runners up from my hat to receive these free ebooks!
Your turn!
So what do you think of these prizes? What level do you think you’ll reach by the end of the year? Do you have any suggestions for prizes for this challenge or possible future challenges? Please tell me in the comments below. I’d love to hear your thoughts.